Family Remembers Loved One Lost in Flood

Columbia, SC (WLTX)- When first responders rescued drivers from their cars off Decker Blvd on the morning of October 4, 2015, they thought they had saved everyone.

But Sampson Antawin Pringle, whose red and black Chevrolet truck can be seen from footage of the scene that day, unfortunately was not one of them.

After working the night as a DJ at a local club, he left with two people who needed a ride home. As two feet of rain pounded down on the state, Pringle's car was swept away by the current.

He called his fiance Aneesa Smith to let her know the situation he was in.

"He said he'll be home in a little bit, rescue is coming; I guess he saw rescue," she said. "That's the last I spoke with him. We said I love you and then we ended the call."

For two days, Smith and Pringle's family tried to track him down, pinging his phone and calling shelters and hospitals.

"He's not the one that's not going to call us at all, he's going to find a way to make a call," Pringle's sister Taylor Pringle said. "At that moment I knew something wasn't quite right."

The circumstances surrounding Pringle's death from the rushing waters at that scene are still unknown. They're questions that the family is still searching for.

"It's no closure, wondering trying to figure out what happened," Taylor Pringle said. "I think I would just be at peace if i just knew."

Pringle leaves behind two daughters Samiya, age 6, and Cherish, age 8.

"I'm never going to forget the father-daughter dance," Cherish wrote in a poem to her dad. "You are our dad and we are glad. All these years daddy, Simaya and I always had fun. Losing you daddy here on earth allowed god to gain you in heaven."

Both passengers who were in the car with Pringle made it out alive, but the family said they have had little contact with the two.

Pringle's body drifted downstream, washing up in a gazebo off of Trenholm Rd. two days later.

A total of 19 people died across South Carolina during the historic Flood